As electronic music takes over the Harvard party scene, student DJs are rising in popularity on campus and in the broader Boston community.
Three leading Harvard DJs reveal that their success is not just a matter of hitting the right sounds or accessing the right parties. Rather, their ability to seamlessly guide an audience through a series of emotions and beats suggests that on Harvard’s campus, the art of mixing is also an art of storytelling.
Fabrizio Serafini ’24 — “DJ Fabrizio”
When Fabrizio Serafini ’24 arrived at Harvard from Palermo, Italy, he assumed that in “coming to the states, on campus there would have already been DJs.” He said, “I expected the music genre would have been different, so I didn’t necessarily think that I would have DJed as much.” However, Serafini quickly found this was not the case.
During his first year at Harvard, most parties he attended depended on Spotify playlists. “The music quality, most importantly, was very, very low. People had no taste and were not aware of what it means to actually have a good experience with music,” Serafini said.
With that realization, Serafini’s experience as a Harvard DJ began. His first show freshman year at Lowell’s annual rave-themed party, Glowell, earned him enthusiastic reviews. “It was a good feeling,” Serafini said. “I liked it because I was like, wow, it means I can play also here in the states, and there was interest for the music I played.” Soon, Serafini found himself consistently DJing at sports team mixers and parties at The Hasty Pudding Club. As a sophomore, Serafini began playing at final clubs and as a junior, at The Grand nightclub in Boston.
“People think that DJing is something easy and that it’s something where you can go be up there on stage, press some buttons, and somehow good music will come and people will have fun,” Serafini said. “But that’s absolutely not true, and it’s all about preparation and working yourself, preparing your library… Stage presence is for sure important because you need to understand the people and what type of music they like…because every party is like a narrative.”
The years of time spent developing one’s sound and learning to read a crowd lie at the crux of what it means to be a successful DJ. Serafini “needs to understand the people” to create a narrative for the specific audience at each show.
The idea of storytelling and creative expression is fundamental to Serafini’s experience in the DJ world. He finds a tradeoff between responding to the audience’s wishes and incorporating his personal take on the music. “The most important thing is earning the trust of the people, so if you are able to kind of do a tradeoff between tracks that makes everyone have a good time plus your own style, that’s what I try to do,” he said, explaining that he seeks to expose his audience to new music while simultaneously sensing their enjoyment and accommodating their tastes.
Serafini feels a sense of accomplishment in bringing an Italian influence into his DJ world at Harvard and a sense of pride in “changing the [musical] culture.” Serafini contends that “coming from Italy gives you a broad perspective on genres” and that he feels happy that he “can bring this to the table as well.”
“It’s not the equipment that makes the player, it’s the player that makes the player,” Serafini expressed.
Andrew de Souza ’23 — “de SOUZ”
De Souza noticed a lack of cultural diversity in the music played at Harvard, and that “a lot of marginalized communities [did] not feel represented in the music they heard at [Harvard] parties.” For de Souza, noticing this lack of musical representation emboldened him to counteract such a discrepancy. Like Serafini, de Souza works to cater each of his sets to his audience and cites this as one of the primary challenges that DJs face.
De Souza played on the rugby team during his first three years at Harvard, however, after getting injured during his senior year, was faced with more time than ever to focus on music. During the winter of 2022, de Souza began to learn how to produce music more professionally.
When asked how he transitioned from music production generally into the realm of DJing, de Souza recalled how his current roommate spontaneously showed him the basics of mixing one night last spring and the enthusiasm that fostered in him for the craft.
Over the following summer, de Souza participated in a Masterclass by Questlove, a musician and producer who emphasized the storytelling component of DJing, something that greatly influenced de Souza’s own approach to mixing. Then, while working at a consulting firm over the summer, de Souza DJed formally for the first time at a company event. Such an experience quickly revealed to de Souza that “every event that you DJ has a different vibe” and that gauging these differences is one of the hardest skills for beginners to master.
This fall, de Souza DJed a friend’s birthday which quickly “snowballed into more and more.” de Souza now plays at a variety of events ranging from Finals Clubs to more intimate events with close friends. De Souza said, “I’m a very social person but also very introverted.” The role of a DJ allows him to be a part of these social settings while also having the platform to read people’s energies and to alter his performance accordingly. Though “People are constantly perceiving you,” said de Souza, oftentimes the audience really just wants to “feel like they’re in the know.”
“Inherently you are judging your own performance based off [the audience’s] reception,” de Souza said, an effort that takes time and confidence to internalize. “There are moments when you’re DJing when everything else disappears… You’ve gotten people into a zone that is magical.”
Jeff Basta ’23 — “Kotier”
Half of the art of DJing is reading the crowd and making adjustments in real time,” Basta said, a fact that makes the prep work of a DJ all the more layered. For more formal events, Basta uses lengthy playlists which allow him to select the perfect song from a previously narrowed list. In contrast, his sets at Harvard parties are primarily unplanned. Basta said that he typically has a “rough idea of how I want my set to go [and an] energy arc I know I want.” He measured the success of a DJ on their ability to act spontaneously based off of the energy of the event.
Basta began playing piano at a very young age and eventually became interested in DJing and electronic music during middle school. Basta started out playing small events like middle school dances after learning the technical skills required to mix from YouTube videos.
After transferring from the University of Michigan at the end of his freshman year, Basta found DJs “pretty in demand” upon his arrival at Harvard, and that there was little to no DJ community on campus. Now a prominent DJ at final clubs and other private events, Basta said, “once the word is out that you’re a decent DJ, people start to reach out.”
Basta has extended his performances onto public stages, playing at The Grand in Boston and at NOTO, a club in Philadelphia and the largest show he’s ever played. Remembering the packed environment and the 1,000 people in attendance, Basta said, “I didn’t even know how to be around people,” a testament to the time and practice it takes to hone one’s skills and comfort in the DJ world.
There is a key component of trusting yourself during a set that is a fundamental part of performing as a DJ. “Usually once you get into the swing of [a set], muscle memory takes over, and you kind of stop thinking about it,” Basta said.
Like de Souza, he finds that the real technicality of DJing is managing the social variables rather than strictly mixing beats. Basta explained the ability to sense timing and push a crowd lie at the heart of the craft.
Looking past graduation, Basta plans to pursue music production full time and is currently making primarily melodic house. Check out Kotier on Spotify!
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Creating a narrative on stage is no small undertaking. Sharing a part of yourself while simultaneously recognizing the needs of your crowd takes time and interpersonal skills that are often overlooked. As these three DJs exemplify, success lies not simply in the songs that are played, but in the bond that is formed between performer and crowd.
Clara Corcoran ’25 (claracorcoran@college.harvard.edu) is looking for recommendations for her November playlist.